August 31, 2001

Opposite the Chinese Consulate in Chicago

130 women - 130 mothers, daughters, grandmothers, wives, and sisters - 130 female Falun Gong practitioners are with each passing day coming ever closer to death in the Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang City in China. Masanjia Labor Camp is a hell on earth, notorious among the brutal Chinese labor camps for the use of the most brutal and extreme measures to "brainwash" Falun Gong practitioners. At the beginning of August the sentences (sentences that are themselves a mockery of justice) of these 130 practitioners came to an end. The head of the labor camp refuses to release any practitioner until that practitioner renounces Falun Gong. These 130 practitioners have decided to protest this injustice with their lives, and have now been on hunger strike for four weeks. Rather than accepting torture and humiliation they have chosen the dignity of refusal. They refuse to cooperate with the evil that goes on in Masanjia. The conflict between Falun Gong and Jiang Zemin and his associates is thus now focused on this one spot - these 130 refuse to give in, the government refuses to release them.

Today a number of Falun Gong practitioners from Chicago and other parts of the Midwest have chosen to begin a hunger strike of their own. This hunger strike joins with hunger strikes by practitioners in Washington, D.C., and cities and towns across this country. In addition, in Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Johannasberg, Stockholm, Berlin, and London, in all of these great cities of the world and more, Falun Gong practitioners are protesting the detention of the 130 in Masanjia with hunger strikes.

The practitioners of Falun Gong cherish all life. The practitioners here in Chicago choose to endure a little suffering that they know they can bear in order to let the world know of the horrible suffering going on in Masanjia today. The 130 held in Masanjia can't speak for themselves, but with this hunger strike the practitioners here in Chicago use the most powerful means available to them to awaken the people of the world. Everyone today is faced with a choice: whether to remain quiet and to acquiesce in injustice, or to speak out and help end it; whether to side with cruelty or with kindness.

When the practitioners in Washington, D.C. were asked about their hunger strike, they replied, "We come here because we love life. The principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance have helped us to understand the reason we should cherish all lives. We come here because we have an understanding of life, and because we know that "being unselfish and selfless, putting others ahead of ourselves" represents a higher value in life."

When the truth about this time comes out, Masanjia will be a name known everywhere for the evil things done there. Shenyang City, the home of Masanjia, is the sister city of Chicago. We Chicagoans have a special responsibility, then, to speak to those in Shenyang, sister to sister, or brother to brother, and let them know the torture of our sisters in Masanjia cannot continue. Indeed, Chicago must do this in order to let the world know that we in Chicago do not in any case condone what is done in Shenyang, but especially because it is our sister city.

On Monday here in Chicago at the entrance to our 911 facility, those who persecute Falun Gong in China were put on notice that they cannot escape responsibility for their actions. A summons was served to Mr. Zhou Yongkang, the General Secretary of the xx Party of the Province of Sichuan, for a civil suit against him for crimes against humanity brought by Mr. Haiying He. Mr. Zhou has been an enthusiastic supporter of the persecution of Falun Gong, and one can only guess at how many thousands have been tortured in obedience to his commands. With this suit, and other suits, and with whatever means the law and the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance allow, the practitioners of Falun Gong will continue steadfastly opposing the persecution in China until this madness is brought to an end.